The wall at Umm Salamone village, near Bethlehem
What hurts most is seeing what has not been destroyed yet. The sun shines over Umm Salamone’s terraced olive groves and the mountain slopes overgrown with herbs. We are in a village just south of Bethlehem. It smells of thyme and rosemary.
However, it also smells of blue spray paint. Two men are marking out where the wall will be built. They measure the altitude of the land and then they mark the route with blue colour. Ten soldiers from the Israeli army are protecting their work. The landscape is yet unharmed and to imagine a wired wall cutting through the scenery here feels absurd. It hurts inside me.
The Palestinian landowners who cultivated and owned the land for generations follow the work with sorrowful eyes. An older man hides his face when he sheds tears. “This is not shalom,” we say to the soldiers. We cannot do any more – only pray and hope that our presence will make a difference.
I am in Bethlehem with an international team of ecumenical accompaniers. There is Elisabeth from Switzerland – a grand old lady who has been retired for ten years but has recently has written a PhD dissertation in theology about women and resistance in the Old Testament. There is Caroline from the US who is a Quaker and with her disarming smile tries to reach beyond the often hard facade of the Israeli soldiers. There is Ronan from Ireland who draws parallels to the conflict in Northern Ireland. Lastly, I, Kristina from Sweden, who is searching connection points to what I work with in Sweden; refugee- and integration issues. How can we live together equal and different? Is it possible to live together at all?
The wall
Israel is building a wall to separate Israelis from Palestinians. The wall project of Israel is not the only one in the world. I think of the walls surrounding the Spanish enclaves Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa that were recently raised from three to six meters so that no Africans will be able to climb over. Morocco has built another wall straight through West Sahara – as much as two thousand and two hundred kilometres long. The US has projected a six hundred kilometre long wall against Mexico to keep the Central American immigrants out. Ronan tells me that there is also a wall going through Belfast. I cannot prevent myself from thinking that building walls is a primitive way of handling conflicts. I think of a couple in a Swedish film that decides to wall themselves into their house since the world out there has become so dangerous. When the logic of fear is ruling it can convince a person – or even a whole nation – that the best you can do is to wall your self in.
However, there is something strange with the wall that Israel is building; something that differs it from these other walls. It snakes through the landscape, making detours, zigzags and sometimes even making circles. Partly the wall follows the border between the internationally recognized Israel and the by Israel occupied West Bank, but time and again the wall stretches itself far inside the Palestinian territory. When I look at the detailed area maps from the UN, I can figure out that it is usually with the purpose to include as many Israeli settlements and as many water resources as possible on the Israeli side of the wall.
What reasons does Israel have for building the wall all the way around a Palestinian town – as they have done with Qualqilya? Why at certain places will two walls be built in parallel outside Bethlehem? After all it is not a cheap project Israel is undertaking when building a wall that will be more than seven hundred kilometres long and at many places eight meters high. “We used to be able to see the sun rise over the Dead Sea like a big orange,” says Clemance at one of her Arabic classes with us. But now the wall is blocking the view. No, I do not understand how the Israeli people can agree on putting their tax money on building all these walls; check points and road blocks and how their government can make them believe that this is the road to “security”. I rather believe that it is the road to an enormous sea of frustration and humiliation. Security you can only get from good neighbours.
“This is a crazy country” an Israeli police man says to me at a closed check point and criticizes that Israel puts so much money on walls and military instead of healthcare, schools and universities. “I have a son who is three years old. My dream is that he will not have to do military service” he says, but adds “but my mother had the same dream for me”. I think of his three-years old son, most probably filled with laughter, innocence and trust in the human beings… Yes, what hurts the most is to imagine the yet not destroyed being invaded by fear and walls – but at the same time that is what gives the will to resist and the strength to work for change. I tell him that he has fifteen years to work for peace.
